This Darksome Burn
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Sometimes the sweet love causes the harshest burn. Scene extended in "A Fair and Perfect Knight", with references to "God Bless the Child."


**Authors Note:** Sometimes the sweet love causes the harshest burn. Title from Gerard Manley Hopkins "Inversnaid". Scene extended in "A Fair and Perfect Knight", with references to "God Bless the Child."

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"Catherine," Vincent said, crossing his hands over his heart. But it could not remove the hollowness she heard far more. "The better part of me would rejoice to see you find love with someone as good and as fine as Michael. You have so much love to give."

Her hand fell away in shock as he walked away from her again. Tears crowded at the edge of her vision. Crowded because he still wouldn't believe that nothing was nothing, even acknowledging it. Because she couldn't let it just end there, anymore than she could obey each time he tried to send her away. "Because of you."

"What we share must always be so measured, so limited." He was pacing, the tone of his voice becoming more agitated, sharp and harsh.

"We don't know what the limits are," she pleaded.

He looked away. "You deserve a life without limits."

"There is no life without limits!"

She screamed the words, half formed in terror and rebellion, near to tears. She watched his head fall, as he leaned on a chair and she looked up at the ceiling, trying to martial herself to try this again.

Somehow again.

Somehow better.

Somehow that he'd hear, that he'd see.

"Vincent—" Catherine moved toward him, slowly, unsure of whether he'd walk away again. Move to avoid her or brush her off or try to send her away. Even now he was still looking away, dismissing the effort for the adder. "If this is my fate, I accept it. Gratefully. You must believe that."

"Don't be afraid to want it. Even only for yourself. Don't be afraid to deserve it." She watched his head, raise and droop with her words, with the falling tears she had not found yet. "You deserve everything."

She pulled him, with her hands on his shoulders, until she could encircle him, grateful that he'd finally let her near. That he could ever think even for a moment, was not something that surprised her. Only the realism of the fact he convinced himself each time toward defeat, that he seemed ready to release her.

And Michael, they'd have to go and find Michael soon—

Vincent turned on her suddenly, pushing her hard up against the bookcase, trapping her between the glass and wood and his body.

His mind was already torn by the first waves of regret and shame, as her minded resounded in shock, in something near, but never reaching fear.

She was not afraid. He could tell that.

Not afraid at all.

She was a collection of reactions—her pulse leapt at her throat, breath quickening to rapid, eyes dilating, her fingers suddenly tightening on the clothing she'd managed to grab—that meant anything but that.

Her eyes were flinty, the pressure of the bookcase causing her back to ache, and her nails found him even through cloth, as her voice sounded like a quiet hiss. "Do you think you have the reign on unfair?"

The bookcase became leverage and Catherine shoved him, causing him to sidestep. She knew the movement was more from surprise than her ability to move him forcefully. It was only the moment of success and then her back was loudly slammed back into the case with a low growl emitted against her shoulder, but it didn't stop her.

"Because you must be here?" She struggled, hands balling his hair, even as her heart leapt faster. She could feel her heart thundering in her skin, in her head, against her lips. No, not her lips. Her lips were not the ones parted, teeth bared, against her jugular.

Breath shuddering she went on, panic and pride, step for step. Fists balled in his hair, jerked his head back, to look at his dark eyes. "You think you are the only one who deals with this anger, this guilt? With jealousy? While you have a young girl and baby who linger after you? Offering you everything?"

"Lana?" His voice seem to come from down a tunnel. "You know-"

But Catherine's voice didn't soften, the way his did. If anything it became harder, along with her grip. "You want to compare what happened with Michael. She offered herself to you at your bedside, on your bed."

Her tone was sacrilegious, threatening to break even as it strove onward through her words. Even as shock and tenderness found his eyes. But it was her turn to throw it away. Her fingers splayed behind his head and jerked it back, to bring him so that he could feel her breath on his lips as she continued.

"She offered to be your wife, to set you as the father of her new born child. A Catherine to replace what you might lose, so nothing was lost in the choice."

A hazy whisper of unveiled poison to mirror his own.

The searing redness in her thoughts was a roar that matched all he'd experienced since the moment he'd felt that kiss. Just the thought of it made his blood boil. Someone else's hands on her cheeks, body against hers, and all the touches of places nearly forbidden. The image was too much.

Vincent pressed into her, kissing her with a force rarely observed and never demonstrated. The center of a hot flame; where pain mingled with the sound of the wood behind her complaining and the taste of blood. The front of the bookshelf snapped, glass shredding into pieces like rain and she felt the books which pelted down across her back and their shoulders.

He pulled away, panting, looking to the destruction and her, but Catherine wasn't paying attention to the thudding of their solid weight even against herself. Her hands were still at his shoulders, nails digging into the fabric, as his eyes found hers the second later. Wild and wide and undeniable.

"The better part of me would rejoice to see you find love with someone was good and as sweet as Lana. You have so much love to give." The words, expressly mocking his words only moments before, from swollen, bloodied lips, still managed to piece with heart breaking bitterness and sadness.

Catherine thought if he ever swore he might have then. Guilt mingled with the fury, as he shook his head, reaching up to cover where her hands still were, the wide movement catching the insult and the fact it wasn't. His voice was rough, a half snarl. "I don't-"

He silenced without saying it, but she pressed, still angry. "Don't what, Vincent?"

"Want her." He said it in a whisper; with such remorse, such recrimination, it almost brooked its own shame. "Don't love her."

"And I don't want him." She said it without whispering. She said it too loud. She said it and didn't care if he was in the doorway beyond them. "I don't love him."

And then she pulled him back at the same moment he pushed forward. The fallen shelf, now dilapidated and diagonal, dug into her back, but it was hardly felt through the fury of their kiss.

A torrent of denial and anger and _ownership_ claiming both of them.


End file.
